Thu, 09/22/2011 – 08:05 – PokerPages Staff

5. Kirill Gerasimov – Total Earnings of $2,566,822
A cool and collected player, Kirill Gerasimov first tasted success at a poker tournament in 2001, winning the princely sum of £2,075 for coming fourth in a Russian event called the Winter Tournament.  Since then cashes, wins and dollars have been rolling in handsomely.

4. Alexander Kostritsyn– Total Earnings of $3,125,515
Born and raised just outside Moscow, Alexander Kostritsyn’s ambition is to make Russia a force to be reckoned with in the poker world.  Kostritsyn’s biggest win at a poker table has been the $1,735,198 he picked up at the Aussie Millions Main Event in 2008.

3. Alex Kravchenko– Total Earnings of $3,533,954
Former businessman Alex Kravchenko has been playing poker seriously since 2000.  In that time, he has achieved 95 cashes, seven first place finishes, and a solitary WSOP bracelet, winning the Limit Omaha Hi/Lo in 2007.  Kravchenko’s biggest haul was at the 2007 WSOP Championship, where a 4th place finish netted him $1.8 million.

2. Vitaly Lunkin – Total Earnings of $4,178,567
Double WSOP bracelet winner Vitaly Lunkin is the second most successful Russian poker player of all time.  In his ten year career, he has achieved 38 cashes and 4 first placed finishes.  The highlight of Lunkin’s career so far would have to be picking up $1.8 million and his second WSOP bracelet for winning the No Limit Hold ‘em in the 2009 series.

1. Ivan Demidov – Career Earnings of $6,726,063
A born and bred Muscovite, Ivan Demidov is the most successful Russian Poker Player of all time, with career earnings approaching $7 million.  Since he began playing poker in 2006, Demidov has won only a single tournament, but scooped a massive $5.7 million coming second in the WSOP No Limit Hold ‘em Championship in 2008.

September 22 2011, Donnie Peters

The World Poker Tour Malta resumed play on Wednesday with the second starting flight. Day 1b added 139 players to the field and brought the total entries to 240, which created a prize pool of “698,400. At the end of the day, Tommy Vedes finished on top, with a stack of 115,500.

Plenty of notables were in action, and some of them for the second time in this re-entry event, including John Eames, Sam El Sayed, Ivan Freitez, Steven Kelly, Dragan Galic, McLean Karr and Phil Hellmuth. Out of that bunch, only Eames, Galic and Hellmuth were able to advance, and all three did with relatively low numbers of chips. Hellmuth bagged up 34,075, Galic finished with 23,350 and Eames finished with the smallest stack moving to Day 2 with 17,100. They’ll all have plenty of work cut out for them on Thursday.

At the end of the day, 90 players remained from the 139 that started. Combining those survivors with the ones from Day 1a, the returning field for Day 2 will be 154 players. Everyone will be chasing Day 1a chip leader Fabien Sartoris, but there’s still plenty of firepower left in the field to provide some great poker action.

Among those advancing to Day 2 are Antoine Saout, Marvin Rettenmaier, Sofia Lovgren, Tobias Reinkemeier, Steve O’Dwyer and William Thorson. Some of the other players who fell on Day 1b in their last chance to move on were Davidi Kitai, Fabrice Soulier, Kara Scott and James Akenhead.

Day 2 will take place on Thursday, beginning at 1600 CEST (1500 BST). PokerNews will have the recap from the day’s action after it is complete, so be sure to stay tuned.

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*Photo courtesy of the World Poker Tour

Follow Donnie Peters on Twitter – @Donnie_Peters